CAC board member Drew Jackson is a pastor and poet. In this poem, published in the latest issue of Oneing, Jackson grapples with the paradox of what is seen and unseen, inviting us to stand patiently in the unknowing:
This Unveiling
This is
the pressing question
of every age:
What is it that we cannot see?
For life is hiddenness,
as is God,
and we have been given
the gift of searching.
The unseen works on us, always.
Waves pulsing through our flesh, unfelt.
Forces pulling at our bodies. Forces
putting black bodies in cells en masse.
Each one underneath a veil of opacity that we call law.
All that is hidden
is meant to be
revealed,
yet revelation cannot be achieved.
It comes when it comes,
when it wants to unearth itself—
fall from the heavens like light
to those who have insisted it lay itself bare.
This unveiling,
daring us
to live differently.
Reference:
Drew E. Jackson, “This Unveiling,” Oneing 10, no. 1, Unveiled (Spring 2022): 89–90. Available in print and PDF download.
Explore Further. . .
- Engage in a contemplative practice with Drew Jackson’s poem “Of Earth and Sky.”
- Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
- Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.
Image credit: Young Shih, Untitled (detail), 2021, photograph, Taiwan, Free Use. Charles O’Rear, Grasses After Spring Rain (detail), 1973, photograph, Nebraska, Public Domain. Mohsen Ameri, Untitled (detail), 2021, photograph, Iran, Free Use. Jenna Keiper & Leslye Colvin, 2022, triptych art, United States. Click here to enlarge the image.
This week’s images appear in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story.
Image inspiration: Dewdrops on grass, sunlight on the path, trees reaching skyward. It’s easy to overlook things we think we have seen already seen before. How can we look more deeply, allow our sight to be shifted so as to see anew?
Story from Our Community:
With the current political climate, I found myself put off by many of the conversations, posts and polarization on social media. I practice intentionally sending love from my heart to one or two specific others with which I disagreed. I felt the tension in my own body as I did this. It was not easy, as I also felt a wave of my own fear come up to be released. The struggle of this practice reminds me that real love is not an idea, but an anchor point within myself that I have to return to regularly and rest.
—Lauren A.
Prayer for our community:
God, Lord of all creation, lover of life and of everything, please help us to love in our very small way what You love infinitely and everywhere. We thank You that we can offer just this one prayer and that will be more than enough, because in reality every thing and every one is connected, and nothing stands alone. To pray for one part is really to pray for the whole, and so we do. Help us each day to stand for love, for healing, for the good, for the diverse unity of the Body of Christ and all creation, because we know this is what You desire: as Jesus prayed, that all may be one. We offer our prayer together with all the holy names of God, we offer our prayer together with Christ, our Lord, Amen.
